A FUNCTIONAL Spider-Man Web Shooter (It Shoots).

So, Spider-Man. One of the most iconic superheroes of all time, swinging through the city with style, cracking jokes mid-battle, and rocking some of the coolest gear in the Marvel universe. Especially those web-shooters. I’ve always thought they were one of the dopest parts of his design, so I decided to make one.

This one’s inspired by Miles Morales, so I went with a red and black colorway to match his suit. I started off using basic stuff like cardboard and super glue, but I also used some springs and a magnet I got off Amazon. And yes, it actually works. It’s functional so that it shoots thread, just like a real web-shooter would.

Also, credit to a YouTube creator named Sean’s Crafts, as his videos definitely helped inspire this build. If you’re into superhero builds, want to make one yourself, or just want to see how I pulled this off, stick around.

Springs (x2): Used to launch the bullet by storing tension when compressed.

Magnet (3mm x 1.4mm): Attached to the bullet tip so it sticks to metal.

Velcro: Straps the web-shooter around your wrist.

Fishing Line: Used as a trigger to fire the web-shooter

Cardboard: Forms the circular base of the web-shooter.

Red poster board: Used for the red center piece; mine came from a Coca-Cola box.

Black Foam + White Foam: Used to make the center piece. The white foam is about 1/4" thick, and the black foam is about 1/8" thick. One thing I should add is that this

Cereal box cardboard: Used for the cartridge and indicator light.

Dental Floss: Used to strengthen the bond between the two springs.

Black paint + brush: For painting most of the build.

Duct tape: Used to make the wrist strap.

Green paint OR a green piece of paper: You'll need these for the green indicator light.

Two bottle caps: These are used to make the one of the details on the nozzle. These need to be easy to cut with a knife.

Popsicle stick: Used to make the piece that holds the bullet in place when compressed.

Super glue / hot glue / Gorilla glue + baking soda: Bonds everything together; baking soda makes super glue dry aster and stronger. Honestly, I'd say the most important glue out of the three would be gorilla glue, because it's the only glue I've seen that can withstand the force of the two springs. If you have a stronger glue, definitely use that instead.

Paper: Used in the bullet and the nozzle.

Skewer stick: Inserts into the bullet to keep it stiff.

Cutting and drawing tools: Pencil, ruler, scissors, boxcutter, and precision knife for shaping and sketching.

String: Just some crochet thread; attached to the shooting bullet to simulate a web string.

***Featured in the photos are the main things you'll need***

Start by cutting out a cardboard circle that’s 2.25 inches across. This is gonna be the base of the web-shooter. Make sure the cardboard you’re using is thick and holds its shape. Don’t use anything flimsy, and try not to press down on it too much while working. You want it to stay solid.

Now cut out six of the shapes you see in the photo above. You’ll need three that face left and three that face right. Make sure to use the measurements provided in the photo.

Once you’ve got all six cut out, glue them onto each side of the cardboard circle using hot glue. Try to place them just like how they are in the photo. If you followed the measurements, there should already be enough space in the middle for the barrel and cartridge. Make sure everything’s lined up before the glue dries.

Next, we’re going to make the nozzle of the web-shooter.

Start by rolling up a strip of paper into a tube that’s about 1.5 inches wide. Roll it around one of your springs so the fit is semi-tight. It shouldn’t be too loose or too snug, because the bullet needs to slide in and out properly later. Once it’s shaped, tape the tube shut. Then coat the outside in super glue to make it more solid. Since there’s going to be a lot of tension on this part, I also used baking soda to make the glue dry faster and come out stronger.

Now for the bullet. Cut a skewer stick down to 2.5 inches. Then cut a piece of paper the same width as the skewer is long. Start wrapping the paper around the stick, adding super glue along the way so it turns into one rigid piece when it dries.

After that, take a few strips of paper about a quarter inch wide and wrap them around one end of the skewer. This will form the head of the bullet. I used white glue so I could line up the strips better, but in hind sight, super glue would have made for a stronger bond. Keep layering the strips until the head ends up being about the same size as the outer diameter of your spring.

Next, grab a piece of cereal box cardboard and poke a hole through it. Slide the non-head end of the bullet through the hole. The bullet should be able to pass through cleanly, but the springs should not. That part is super important. You want the fit to be just right.

Set the bullet aside. Cut a square around the hole in the cardboard so it's just a little bigger than the opening of the barrel. Cover this square in super glue so it stays stiff and doesn’t bend easily. Make sure the bullet still fits through the hole. If it doesn’t, use scissors or a knife to carefully widen the hole until it does.

Now glue the square to the front of the nozzle. I used super glue first to hold it in place, and then went in with some Original Gorilla Glue around the edges to really lock it in. This bond needs to be strong enough to handle a lot of tension when the shooter is loaded. If your using Gorilla Glue, then you should know that once it dries, you’ll see a foamy yellow layer around the base. I trimmed mine down a bit so it could fit better in the web-shooter. The final shape ends up being more circular than the bulky square you started with.

Before we make the detail piece, start by taking the nozzle piece and wrapping about an inch wide piece of paper around it in the same manner as in one of the photos above. Were doing this because the surface of the nozzle is looking really crusty right now, and part of this surface is actually going to be visible in the final product, so we need to cover it up with a smooth sheet of paper. Then, super glue that piece of paper shut.

Now, we need to make a detail that goes at the tip of the nozzle; a set of groves with a line going across them.

If we're being real, there are probably many other ways to make this detail piece than the way I'm about to show you, so feel free to follow my steps if you want, or you can do your own thing!

Now, take one of your bottle caps. The goal of what we're about to do is to isolate the grooved side of the bottle cap so that we can wrap it around the tip of our nozzle. We need two of these grooved strips, one wider than the other.

Cut a circle in the top of the bottle cap, so that you end up with a ring like structure. Then, make a cut in the ring. What we want to do is shave this ring until we have only the grooved side of the bottle cap remaining. I found the best way to do this is to use a box-cutter or an X-Acto knife for the thick parts of the bottle cap, and then use scissors for trimming and shaping. Once your done trimming and you have one curved strip of grooves, do the same thing to the other bottle cap, making sure that this second strip is slightly less thick compared to the first strip.

You should end up with the two curved strips seen in the photos above.

Now, take the two strips and hot glue them around the tip of the nozzle. The thicker strip should be first (I mean farther from the edge of the nozzle) and the thinner strip should be second. Make sure there is a visible line between the two strips, as that is one of the key parts on this detail.

Now, we need to make the piece that holds the bullet in place until gets pulled down and the bullet fires. Start by taking a popsicle stick and cutting a piece that's about 7/8" of an inch, and then 2 pieces that are about 3/8".

The goal here is for the two pieces to be glued to the larger popsicle stick as seen in the photo; one behind the other. We're doing this to ensure that this piece does not break under pressure. I glued the two pieces to the 7/8" popsicle stick using my strongest glue -- Gorilla Glue.

Once the whole piece dried, I had to trim the dried glue down so that it would be less noticeable.

Ok, now we need to take the popsicle stick figure from the last step and the circular cardboard base from earlier and put them together.

Start by putting super glue on the bottom of the trigger piece and on the bottom of the circular base as seen in the photo. Then, take a strip of duct tape long enough to cover both areas of glue, and then connect the two parts, MAKING SURE to leave a space between the two. This is formative in making sure the trigger can be pulled down later on. Then, connect flip the whole thing over and apply a piece of duct-tape in the same manner, but on the other side.

The reason why we are using duct-tape with the super glue is because we really want this duct-tape to hold strong and not slip when force is applied.

Hindsight Note: I realized later on that adding multiple layers of duct-tape connecting the circular base to the popsicle stick is beneficial especially when it comes to withstanding tension.

After everything dries, wrap a strip of duct-tape around the popsicle stick trigger as seen in the photo to prevent slipping further.

Flex the trigger up and down to make sure it moves properly.

Alright, now we're going to paint both the web-shooter body (now connected to the popsicle stick trigger). and the nozzle. You can obviously paint them what ever color you want, but I'm painting mine black.

I also hope that you can see why I wanted to wrap that piece of paper around the nozzle, because its visible in the final product.

Now we need to simply glue the nozzle to the web-shooter body. Like for every piece that will endure lots of tension, I used Gorilla Glue.

Important: Make sure to leave space (about half and inch) between the nozzle opening and the popsicle stick tripper; there needs to be space for the bullet head.

Now we make the red center piece that goes in the center of the web-shooter. After we make this and do the next step, the whole design will really start coming together.

Take your white craft foam and cut out a 3/8" by 3 1/2" strip. Curve the strip into a circle, and use duct-tape to close the circle off.

After that take some red poster board (or the red part of a packaging box -- like the Coca-Cola box I'm using) and cut out a circle with a diameter of about 1 1/4". Then, hot glue the red circle to the foam circle the same way I did in the photo (they should be the same size). This should end up looking kind of like a bottle cap.

Next, take a very thin strip of white foam (about 1/4 in thick and 3 1/2" long) and wrap it around the bottom of the "bottle cap". This addition is going to make it much easier later to wrap another piece around this figure.

Using the black foam, cut out a 3/8" thick strip. It doesn't matter about the strips precise length, just because we can trim down any extra material later.

Next, use your fingers to pinch the strip into a "C" like shape like you see me doing in the photo. This will ensure that when wrapped around the red centerpiece, a beveled edge shape is created.

Now, wrap the curved strip around the red center piece, using hot glue to line it up properly along the way. When your happy with the slanted edge, cut the extra part of the strip off, and glue the lose edge closed.

After that, I cut a small triangular notch in the bottom of the centerpiece, like you see in the photo. I did this so that it wouldn't sit at an angle because of the bump of the nozzle.

DO NOT glue it to the web-shooter yet.

Next, we're gonna make the green light vent that goes beside the red circle of the web-shooter. If you couldn't tell by now, I'm basing the features of this web-shooter of the The Amazing Spider-Man web-shooters, and this is a key detail on that design.

We're about to cut out three shapes that will be stacked in layers to make the base of the indicator lights shape.

To begin, take some cereal box cardboard and cut out a shape similar to the one in the photo; it should be about 7/8" wide and 3/8" of an inch thick.

Then cut out a second figure with the same measurements as the one we just cut out, but instead of using cereal box cardboard, use actual corrugated cardboard instead.

Now cut out a third shape that is slightly bigger than the cereal box cardboard figure. Once you have the third shape, flatten it out.

Now we need to create the vent piece. Draw an offset shape inside the cereal box cardboard piece and use a knife to cut out the shape, so now you have a curved rectangle with it's center missing. Now take that center that you just cut out and cut out four, tiny rectangles of cereal box cardboard. Now take those tiny pieces and place them back in the hollowed-out, curved rectangle so that they create a bar-like shape.

After that, paint the vent. Make sure not to move the vent bars, though they should be stuck in place even without friction.

Next I took some green construction paper and super glued it to the back of the vent to create the green bars.

Now, take the vent piece and glue it to the corrugated piece of cardboard that ISN'T squished, and then glue the bottom of that piece of cardboard to the cardboard that is squished.

Now that we have the base of the green vent light, were going to make it's slanted sides.

Put the base on a piece of piece of cereal box, then draw the three slanted sides next to it. Make sure your using the base piece as a reference. There should be two side pieces that look like right trapezoids, and a front piece that looks like a long trapezoid. Use my example photos as a reference as well.

Paint the three side pieces black, and then glue them onto the base as seen in the photos. You should have a beveled edge shape with a vent on top.

After that take the red center-piece and cut a chunk out of it's side using a knife. Then hot glue the green vent light to the center-piece. After that, hot glue the center-piece to the web-shooter.

While I had my painted out, I decided to make the side pieces of the web-shooter.

This is pretty simple; make two 5/8" by 5 1/4" rectangles and hot glue them to the sides of the web-shooter.

We're going to take that bullet that we were working on earlier and finish it up.

Take a 1/8" strip of paper and wrap it around the tip of the bullet until the bullet head is at least half an inch wide. If it is too small, the bullet could fire on accident. Make sure to strengthen this new layer of paper with super glue.

Next, take two springs and some dental floss. We want to tie and least two knots connecting the two springs to make sure they don't come apart during firing. Make sure that what ever spring you are using line up to resemble one large spring. These two springs are the firing power of the web-shooter.

Tie the two knots connecting the two springs, but don't trim them yet. Strengthen the knot with super glue first, and then trim them.

Now the springs can be glued to the bullet using super glue (and lots of it) in the same manner that I did in one of the photos above.

Now, take some string and hot glue it to the tail of the bullet. This will be our web. Make sure that if you plan on catching it to grab things, you make the string long. Make the string short if your looking for range.

I needed to compress the springs before I could do this, and in hindsight, I probably should've glued the string to the bullet before adding the springs.

To make the bullet stick to metal objects, at a small magnet to the top of the bullets head. MAKE SURE to put the bullet on the side of the bullet head, so that the popsicle stick trigger can hook onto the bullet properly.

Now the bullet is complete.

Next we make the box that holds the string; the cartridge.

Draw a 2 1/4" by 3" rectangle on cereal box cardboard, and split it up into 5 fragments. From right to left:

1/2" - 1/2" - 1 - 1/2" - 1/2"

Cut out the rectangle, score it (lightly with a knife; to make the folds easier), and then fold it into a cartridge shape.

Use a piece of duct-tape to close of the cartridge.

Next, we can make the back piece of the cartridge by tracing one end of the cartridge onto another piece of corrugated cardboard. Cut out that tracing, and then glue it to the back of the cartridge.

After that, I painted the cartridge and put it inside the web shooter to make sure it fitted in nicely.

To fire the web-shooter, We need to make a wire that, when the wrist is flexed, pulls down the popsicle stick trigger.

Start by taking some fishing line (you can also use string, but it's more visible) and wrapping it around your index finger and hold it in place on your wrist, like I did in one of the photos above. The goal here is put your fingers on the fishing line in the place that the fishing line will be glued to the popsicle stick. Remember that the popsicle stick is going to be pulled down by this fishing line, so don't make it too loose.

Once you find that right length, keep your fingers in the place on the fishing line that will be glued to the trigger.

Trim down any excess fishing line, and then glue the fishing line to the trigger at the place that you were holding with your fingers.

Put the whole thing on your wrist and simulate some trigger action. If it doesn't feel right, make adjustments to the trigger length, and you'll get the right custom fit eventually.

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To make the wrist strap, take some duct-tape and fold both sides toward the middle of the duct tape. Make sure to pre-measure it's length so that it wraps around your wrist with some over lap. We're doing this to make space for the Velcro patches.

Once you are happy with it's length, glue it to the web-shooter, making sure that the two ends of duct tape overlap in the middle of your wrist and not the side.

When your happy with the way the strap is glued, add a "hook" piece of Velcro on one end of the strap and a "loop" piece if Velcro on the other end in the same way I did in the photo. They should be on opposite sides of the duct tape.

Alright, the moment you've all been waiting for: Loading and firing the web-shooter.

Start by feeding the end of the string through the nozzle and out the back of the web-shooter. Feed ALL the string through the nozzle.

Then, wrap all the string around a pencil, but not too tightly, because we want to be able to slide it off.

Now feed the string into the cartridge by pushing it off with your fingers.

Make sure to feed any excess string into the cartridge and slide the cartridge into the web-shooter.

Then, pop the bullet into the web-shooter and make sure its gets stuck on that popsicle stick trigger.

When wearing the web-shooter, make sure to put your pointer finger in the fishing line loop first, then close the straps around your wrist.

Pull down the loop with your finger to fire the web-shooter.

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Tips and trouble-shooting:

1. One problem I kept running into was the tip of my bullet becoming too smooth, stopping the trigger from gripping on to it. I fixed this by adding backing baking soda and super glue to either the bullet tip or the trigger. Make sure not to add to much or the trigger won't pull down easily.
2. This thing really hurts if you get hit with it up close! Don't point it at people or fragile object...
3. If your paint keeps coming of of the plastic components of your build (the bottle caps parts on the nozzle or the glossy side of the cereal box cardboard) then make sure your adding many layers of paint! use a paint brush to paint some clear white glue over it if that doesn't work.
4. YouTube really helped me design this project, so refer to that if you need extra details or help specifically.
5. Be carful of intense heat (like the sun on a sunny day), your hot glue might undo itself.

Making builds like this that endure a lot of tension can be frustrating at times, especially when things snap or break, but it is very rewarding to see your efforts pay off in the final product.

Thanks for reading, and I'll catch you in the next one.